Many cameras can pick a face or faces out of an image and optimize the focus and exposure settings to capture them correctly. At the end of the day, the photographer still has to index and catalog the photos, however.

The idea is for a camera that can store a number of "faces" that can, in turn,
be named. I'll be vague about the process because I don't think it matters if the faces and names are stored in the camera or some removable media.

The gist is, whenever a photograph is taken and the camera can recognize the face, it saves the image using the face name. So instead of a flash memory card full of images labeled "DSC_blahblahblah" or "IMG_blahblahblah" you get images labeled "Chris_01" or "Chris, Bob and Ian_07". (A date should probably be appended to each, but that's ancillary to the idea).

Photographs could be categorized/stored (or not stored) based on name or names of the subjects photographed. Combined with an internal GPS and map and you could get photos named with the subject and location ("Stu and two others near Westminster Abbey, 2008.2.16.img")

Ultimately, there's no reason *any* object couldn't be subject to the same treatment, assuming the object can be adequately recognized and the photographer can be bothered to name the object.

Even better if the thing can automatically suck the names off, say, Flickr or Facebook or other common upload site. With all the "tagged" photos on those sites, the database of faces must be pretty extensive.

Baked, it would seem, by the people who brought you red eye elimination and face detection, for Samsung and now Nikon. For Casio and Sony, they provide software that will recognize particular people in a photograph, and preferentially focus on their faces.